Two-Face (DC Animated Universe)
Harvey Dent, better known as Two-Face is the secondary antagonist of the television series Batman: The Animated Series and its spinoffs. He is the former head of the District Attorney's office and Bruce Wayne's best friend, but after suffering from his multiple personality disorder and an explosion that scared half of his body, Harvey's darker personality took over and turned him into Two-Face. Two-Face continues to be a major threat to Batman and Gotham City. He was voiced by Richard Moll. History Past Harvey Dent suffered from deep-seated psychological trauma resulting from years of repressing anger. As a child, another personality was created inside Harvey, who would come to be called Big Bad Harv. Big Bad Harv would sometimes show himself whenever Harvey were to become incredibly angry, causing him to seek therapy. As Harvey Dent Prior to his disfigurement, Dent was a childhood friend of Bruce Wayne and even his best friend. It is shown that Harvey is perfectly willing to prosecute during Man-Bat's rampage. Harvey once dated Pamela Isely, and even wanted to marry her. However, it turned out that Pamela actually desired to kill Harvey after his construction of Stonegate Penitentiary nearly caused a rare species of flower to go extinct. One week into their relationship, Pamela poisoned Harvey using a toxin derived from the same flowers, causing him to be hospitalized. Batman managed to defeat Isely, who now called herself Poison Ivy, and create an antidote before the poison could take full effect. Harvey would later start a crusade to the arrest the mob boss Rupert Thorne and to become elected district attorney. He also planned to marry his girlfriend Grace Lamont. As Big Bad Harv However, it was during this time that Harvey's severe anger repression started to get the best of him, creating a persona known as Big Bad Harv that would surface and lash out when in stressful situations. This would lead Rupert Thorne to getting a hold of his psychiatric file and creating plans to blackmail him unless he were to do him favors. However, as Thorne was trying to blackmail Harvey, Big Bad Harv broke out after Harvey tells Thorne that he's talking to the wrong Harvey, and he had a fight with Thorne and his men. When the brawl ensued between Dent and Thorne's men, a freak explosion horribly disfigured the left side of Dent's body after one of Thorne's men tried to shoot him down with a gun as Batman realized that he has failed to save Harvey. The trauma was powerful enough to force his alternate personality to dominate, and left Harvey in a state where right and wrong no longer held any meaning. As Two-Face After the accident, he became a twisted vigilante known as "Two-Face" and soon began his own crusade to bring Thorne down, something the law deliberately failed to do. He feels as though this is the way he was meant to be, living in a world of chaos, without the order and justice he once upheld and believed in. Dent's world revolves around chance, more specifically the flip of his coin which was clean on one side, and covered by scars on the other. Every decision Two-Face makes falls on the flip of his coin. It is judge, jury, and executioner. When the "Good Heads" turns up, Harvey is in control. When it's "Bad Heads", however, Two-Face shines and becomes more dominant than Harvey can ever be. Yet, there always seems to be a piece of Harvey which is strong enough to linger within the mind of Two-Face when he is committing his ungodly acts. However, Two-Face is the dominant personality. In subsequent episodes of the show, Two-Face became the supervillain he is in the comics. Two-Face's opposing personalities are constantly at war, but as Batman learns, it is usually the bad side that wins. Two-Face moderates his inner conflict with a special coin that is scratched on one side. He uses this coin as the arbiter of his own brand of demented justice, flipping the coin to determine his decisions. Without the coin, Two-Face is lost in a world in which no clear answer exists, and Batman understood he could always use this weakness to his advantage. And despite Two-Face and Batman's constant fights with each other, Bruce Wayne never gives up on his old friend. In order to strike back at Thorne, Two-Face robbed his various bookies with the help of twin brothers Min and Max and later stole Thorne's file and escaped from Batman. He then decided to meet with Grace again, however, Rupert Thorne and his gang, having been secretly tracking Grace, arrived and stole the file back, though he is eventually defeated. Just as Two-Face flipped his coin to decide the fate of Thorne, Batman threw a crate of silver dollars, mixing them in midair with Two-Face's coin and causing him to lose it. Unable to decide without it, Two-Face collapses into the floor, throwing a tantrum of rage as Grace comforts him. Later on, Two-Face, along with Joker and Penguin, were invited to an auction selling a tape containing Batman's secret identity organized by Dr. Hugo Strange. However, the villains turn on him when he unknowingly played a tape forged by Batman. Notably, when Strange tries to tell them Batman's identity to save himself, Two-Face stated "I know Bruce Wayne. If he is Batman, I'm the king of England!" While on the run from Batman, Two-Face joins Joker, Penguin, Killer Croc and later Poison Ivy (who he still shares resentment towards) in a poker game in which they start to tell stories about the times they came closest to killing Batman. In his story, Two-Face and his gang strapped Batman to a giant penny placed on a catapult; If it landed face down, Batman would be squashed, if it landed face up, Batman's bones would shatter. When Two-Face's coin launched, the Dark Knight cut free from the ropes in midair using Two-Face's own coin. Much to Two-Face's irritation, Batman got to keep the giant penny as a trophy. Another time, Two-Face used behind-the-scenes manipulation to have Gil Mason infiltrate Gotham's justice system as the Deputy Police Commissioner. Mason's high level of physical abilities earned Commissioner Gordon's trust and brought down Rupert Thorne; Mason's mysterious informant is obviously Two-Face. He has Mason arrest Gordon after framing the Commissioner as being partners with Thorne. While Barbara Gordon and Dick Grayson eventually each respectively figure out Mason's true nature, Two-Face almost executes Matches Malone Batman. Next, he engineers a prison break to make Gordon look guilty, as well as to execute the Commissioner so Mason can take over his job permanently and help Two-Face consolidate power over Gotham's criminal acts. After Batgirl saves Gordon, Two-Face is defeated by Batman and Robin, while Batgirl captures Mason. Two-Face then acted as a prosecutor when Batman's rouges gallery held the Dark Knight prisoner in Arkham in a kangaroo court. After some time, doctors agreed his therapy had been effective enough to stabilize Two-Face's mind, which then allowed the opportunity for surgery upon Harvey Dent's damaged side. Just when the surgery was about to begin, masked mobsters broke into the operating room. Stating only that their 'boss' wanted to handle Dent personally, two cars split from the scene. One took Two-Face to Stonegate, the Penguin's current whereabouts, while the other vehicle was registered to Rupert Thorne. Both criminals had had histories of conflict with both Two-Face and Dent, but neither claimed involvement with Batman and Robin. In truth, Two-Face kidnapped himself to prevent his original personality from eliminating himself completely. Staging the break in, he arranged for his thugs to break him out of the operation and staged a two-pronged getaway, both to allude suspicion and to leave a trademark hint. Though Batman discovered the true kidnapper, he was unprepared for the ambush Two-Face had devised. Capturing Batman, Two-Face placed his life in the flip of the coin. During their earlier struggle, Batman switched the real coin with a trick one, designed to always land on its side. However, Two-Face could not handle the indecision, and chased his coin on to a support beam overhanging Gotham. When the coin fell off in a desperate gamble, he managed to grab it, but fell off in the process and was unable to pull himself back up. Batman caught hold of Two-Face at the last second, but needed Two-Face to pull himself up. The coin, however, could not decide for him; the choice was up to Two-Face alone. His original personality resurged for a moment, and he dropped the coin, but Two-Face took control once more and sabotaged the effort. He plummeted, but Batman and Robin managed to save him and themselves in time. Two-Face was once again sent to Arkham for more psychiatric treatment. Still, Dent emerged once more to thank his old friend for not giving up on him. In the spinoff comic book series The Adventures of Batman & Robin, Two-Face is close to recovery until the Joker, as a twisted prank, convinces him that Grace is cheating on him with Bruce Wayne. Afterwards Two-Face flies into a rage, kidnaps Grace, and tries to kill Bruce Wayne. When Batman foils his plan, he and Grace finally realize that Two-Face will never be cured. Much later, Two-Face kidnapped Tim Drake and made an attempt to kill him before Tim was rescued by Batman. The young boy found himself inspired by Bruce's desire to stand up to people like Two-Face. In combination with his own rebellious nature, Tim would unwittingly steal the Robin costume from the Batcave while Two-Face reacquired chemicals and held the entire city hostage, threatening to create a toxic gas unless he received twenty-million dollars by 2 AM. However, the city refused to pay and after a two-minute warning, Two-Face activated the chemicals. Batman and Batgirl arrived to stop them, and shortly thereafter, the new Robin. The trio stopped the machine and apprehended Two-Face once more. As the Judge In the final episode, Two-Face's personality fragmented a second time, creating a third personality called "The Judge", a violent court-themed vigilante that attempted to eliminate all of Gotham's denizens, even brutally attacking and defeating master criminals such as Penguin, Killer Croc, and The Riddler. Two-Face, looking to eradicate this new threat to him, had no idea that he himself was The Judge. At the end of the episode, he was sent back to Arkham. However, Harvey ended up being psychology disturbed, constantly hearing the Judge's voice inside his head. After this event, he was presumably sentenced to stay in Arkham for the rest of his life. ''Justice League'' Two-Face made a cameo appearance during the Justice League episode 'A Better World' in an alternate reality. This version of Two-Face was among the many supervillains lobotomized by that reality's Superman and imprisoned in Arkham by the Justice Lords. ''Batman Beyond'' Additionally, an android version of Two-Face also had a cameo in the Batman Beyond episode "Terry's Friend Dates a Robot". Two-Face also made a cameo as a wax statue in the uncut version of Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, before it was decapitated by an elderly Bruce Wayne throwing a batarang. Abilities and equipment Two-Face made no decision without consulting chance first. He was never without one of his special double-headed coins. The 'Good Heads' was merely a standard heads, while the 'Bad Heads' was another heads side, but with several slashes and cuts across it. This mirrored Two-Face's dual persona, an embodiment of the good and the bad. He was frequently left incapacitated if he couldn't consult his coin for a decision. Furthermore, Two-Face is obsessed with the themes of duality and opposites and incorporates them in his life and work as much as possible. For instance, his first underlings were a pair of twins and his hideout is divided in one half neat and well appointed while the other half is a messy wreck. Aside from the coin, Two-Face frequently sported a Tommy-gun, and displayed relative proficiency in its usage. He also kept two pistols on his person, which he presumably always drew together in keeping with his motif. He also showed above-average capabilities for physical fighting, and was shown to be very strong, holding his own against multiple foes and flipping the heavyset Rupert Thorne across a room. This was exemplified further when The Judge defeated Killer Croc with ease. However, he did not have outright meta-human powers. Trivia *Two-Face is the only main supervillain in Batman The Animated Series to appear in more than one two-part episode. Ironically, he appears in two. *Two-Face was one of the few characters to not receive a revamp in The New Batman Adventures. His lines became slicker and his head became smaller, but otherwise he remained virtually the same. *Richard Moll also voiced Two-Face in one episode of Batman; The Brave and the Bold. *As the Judge, he was voiced by Malachi Throne. *Batman's method of defeating Two-Face in Two-Face Part II a case of coins was later used in the climax of Batman Forever. *Al Pacino was offered the role of Two-Face but he turned it down. 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